TNW Sites

Facebook to acquire Snaptu. Set to bring more advanced apps to almost every phone

Facebook is set to acquire mobile apps company Snaptu, it has emerged.

Snaptu specialises in enabling the development of apps for low-cost feature phones. On the Snaptu blog today, the company writes: “Earlier this year, we announced the launch of a new Facebook mobile application to give people a great mobile experience on a broad range of feature phones. The Facebook for Feature Phones app currently works on more than 2,500 devices.

“We soon decided that working as part of the Facebook team offered the best opportunity to keep accelerating the pace of our product development. And joining Facebook means we can make an even bigger impact on the world.”

Today’s news was first reported by Israelinewspapers and TechCrunch pegs the value of the acquisition at around $60-70 million. Snaptu is based in London, with offices in Tel Aviv and Silicon Valley.

As Facebook looks to expand its user base ever further, being accessible on the low-cost featurephones available in developing markets is incredibly important. The Snaptu deal should aid this. Snaptu writes on its blog: “We’ll be working hard to offer a richer and more advanced Facebook app on virtually every mobile phone.”

Martin Bryant was Editor-at-Large at The Next Web. He left the company in April 2016 for pastures new. You can find him on Twitter, on Snapchat as Martinsfp, subscribe to him on Facebook and visit his personal site. He's based in Manchester, UK and has a thing for quirky American music and Japanese video games.